First they came for the raw milk farmer…
…and eventually it will be locally-grown meat. (In fact, it’s already started.)
The unholy alliance of Industrial Agriculture and Big Government are engaged in a campaign of harassment and intimidation targeting the small farmer who sells his products directly to the consumer. It’s all under the guise of protecting consumer health, but in fact the real danger to the consumer is that food in the fancy wrapping in the supermarket.
This isn’t political, though Michelle is the only one closer to the President than Big Ag’s lobbyists. But this campaign to discourage local food production has gone on through several Republican and Democrat administrations. It seems to be intensifying now and I can only speculate that what’s called the “locavore” movement is starting to hurt them.
It’s also coming at a time when Industrial Food is losing its price advantage. I see prices at the meat counter that are even higher than Thistle Hill meat. And it’s sure to go up even more. Possibly that’s behind Monsanto’s constant legal action against small farmers—lawsuits the farmers often win, but at enormous cost and stress—and behind the swat-team tactics the government uses against Amish dairy farmers. Even when they try to follow the rules, the government just changes the rules or ignores them and defies you to fight back.
Just one of many of these confrontations is going on in Wisconsin right now and you can take the link to read about it.
Now I mentioned that those of us in local meat production will be next. In fact, our time has already come. At least three times in recent years, under both Republican and Democrat Administrations, the Department of Agriculture has tried to force the registration of every farm animal. Not just the cattle and the pigs, but the barn cats, too.
This so-called “national identification system” has been defeated every time because it has been submitted to either Congress or state legislatures for final approval. Now, however, the bureaucrats are coming back again and this time they’re not going to be side-tracked by any messy legislative process. They’re just going to institute a regulation and enforce it. That they’ll do selectively….wearing down farmers until they give up. Some of our friends are already deciding that’s what they’ll do.
The process will be expensive, of course. More than 100-million animals will have to be tagged and their movements tracked. How many more bureaucrats will be needed to do that. When we move a cow from our farm to the butcher, we’ll have to file a report. When we move a cow from our farm to a neighbor’s pasture to take advantage of some fresh grass, we’ll have to file a report. Our neighbor will have to file a report, too.
Every report will require a fee. Now you would think Big Ag wouldn’t like that at all. No, they like it a lot. You see Thistle Hill is small and will pay a per-cow fee. The big guys will get a blanket license….costing them pennies compared to the dollars the little guys will pay.
The losers will be the consumers who want to know where their food comes from, how it is grown, how it is handled and who is responsible.